The consumption of alcohol during adolescence is a major public health problem. There are several reasons that this requires social and medical intervention, including:

• There is a high rate of alcohol drinking in adolescence that can leads to an increased incidence of auto accidents and other types of injury, physical and sexual assault, and impairment of intellectual and social functioning. There is strong epidemiologic data in humans that early onset of alcohol ingestion is associated with increased incidence of later alcohol dependence.
• Alcohol consumption during adolescence can be modified since it is associated with modifiable risk factors such as exposure to regular drinkers, family members who drink, and social situations where there is increased pressure to utilize alcohol. Childhood maltreatment increases alcohol use.
• The adolescent brain is uniquely susceptible to both short term and long term adverse effects of alcohol. Studies in laboratory animals indicate that alcohol ingestion during adolescence produces different changes in motor and cognitive behavior than alcohol ingestion produces later in adult hood. Adolescent rats develop more rapid tolerance to the motor effects of alcohol but are more sensitive to cognitive and sensory impairments. Exposure to alcohol during adolescence produces long-lasting changes in decreased sensitivity to alcohol induced motor impairments and increased sensitivity to memory impairment as adults. Alcohol in adolescence increases risk taking in adult hood. Even over the legal drinking age of 21 alcohol produces greater memory impairment in the 21 -- 24-year-old human subjects than those over age 25.
• Neurobiologic studies indicate that in adolescent rats, alcohol produces more impairment of long-term potentiation and neurogenesis than it does in adult rats. Exposure to alcohol during adolescence increases dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens and adolescent rats exposed to alcohol have an increased dopamine response to alcohol as adults.
• Adolescents with alcohol use disorders have a reduced prefrontal cortex volume, which is smaller in those that drink more.
• Taken together the findings indicate that adolescents have a unique sensitivity to alcohol that results in increased rates of impaired intellectual functioning and alcohol dependency in adulthood as a result of alcohol induced long term changes in brain function.